Ship
DAVIDSON is named in honor of George
Davidson,
a pioneer scientist and surveyor on the
west coast, who spent most of the 61 years from 1850 to 1911,
in service to the citizens of California, Oregon, Washington,
and Alaska. He was born in Nottingham, England, May 9, 1825,
and emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1832.
They settled in Philadelphia, and he became a student at the
Central High School in 1843 where he studied under Alexander
Dallas Bache prior to Bache's appointment as the second Superintendent
of the Coast Survey. In 1845 Bache selected Davidson as his
clerk and he came to work at headquarters. Davidson was not
entirely happy with such a sedentary existence as he included
within his address in many letters the following notation, "Washington,
D(reary) C(ity)". Davidson was ready to head for the field.

In 1846 Davidson served on the Gulf Coast as an aid in the
company of Assistant Robert Fauntleroy. Fauntleroy befriended
Davidson and taught him the techniques of geodesy in the field.
During the winter months, he took him to his home in New Harmony,
Indiana, a colony of intellectuals and social experimenters
seeking a utopian society. Here Davidson met his future wife,
Ellinor Fauntleroy, although they did not marry until 1858.

George Davidson's greatest works were on the Pacific Coast
where he began work in 1850. His early work was concerned
with the establishment of accurate latitude and longitude
for the prominent points along the coast. He began with Point
Conception, thence Point Pinos near Monterey, down to San
Diego, and then up to Cape Disappointment at the mouth of
the Columbia River. In July 1851, Davidson and his crew proceeded
to Neah Bay at the entrance to the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

While at Neah Bay, the survey party encountered hostility
from the native populace. Although the local Indians were
afraid of possible retaliation from the United States Government
if they attacked Davidson's party, Indians from Vancouver
Island were not. A fleet of large canoes from Vancouver Island
containing at least 150 Indians anchored in the kelp offshore.
The Coast Survey party, numbering nine total, built breastworks
and loaded all available weapons such that each man could
fire 60 shots without reloading. No attack ensued as the reconnaissance
parties from the Indian group always found an armed guard.
That Davidson and the other members of his party were crack
shots and had great physical courage, sometimes exceeding
foolhardiness, is illustrated by the following account in
the Autobiography of James S. Lawson. Lawson was Davidson's
principal assistant on the west coast for many years. A few
years after the Neah Bay incident, Davidson's party had occasion
to inport at Victoria, British Columbia.

While there they took to bragging about American marksmanship
to the British colonial representatives. The following day,
while on a hunt with the British, an American shot at and
wounded a mountain lion. Davidson, who had been running forward,
dropped a rifle cartridge into his shotgun, and, as the lion
was dropping from the first shot, he shot it through its heart.
In the elation of the moment, Davidson took off his hat (stovepipe
variety), placed it on the barrels of his shotgun, and then
placed this in front of his face so that the brim of his hat
just touched the crown of his head. He shouted to his fellow
American to shoot at the hat. The other fellow did, piercing
the hat and splitting the barrels of the shotgun about 2 inches
above Davidson's head. Lawson, reported that the "astonishment
of the English was inexpressible" and upon coming up to Davidson
"forgetting he was my superior officer" called him a "d____d
fool".

Besides the dangers of hostile natives and one's own foolhardiness,
the work in itself was inherently dangerous. Small boat surf
landings on an open rockbound coast, sounding the many bays
and river entrances up and down the coast in all conditions,
and packing into the mountains for the triangulation schemes
had the potential for serious accidents. For instance, Assistant
Joseph Ruth drowned at the mouth of the Columbia River in
1852, and Assistant Julius Kincheloe and five men died off
Port Orford when their boat overturned in 1867. Davidson was
many times in boats that were swamped or overturned.

Concurrent with this dangerous work, he chose the sites for
many of today's west coasts lighthouses and wrote "Directory
for the Pacific Coast of the United States," and published
it in 1858. This publication evolved into the Coast Pilot
series for all of the United States. His 1889 edition of the
"Coast Pilot of California, Oregon, and Washington" became
the authoritative list of sailing directions for the west
coast mariner, traced the origin of many of the names of features
on our west coast, delineated the tracks of early explorers
and navigators, and contained over 400 sketches of pristine
coastal views prior to the encroachment of civilization. This
document is considered one of the great historic works detailing
the geography and early exploration of our Pacific margin.

Many consider George Davidson's crowning achievement to have
been the measurement of the Yolo Baseline in the Sacramento
Valley and the Los Angeles Baseline in southern California
to the then unprecedented accuracy of better than one part
in one million. The baselines approached 11 miles in length
and were the longest baselines for geodetic survey work completed
to that time. These lines served as the starting point for
the great geometric figures ever after known as the "Davidson
Quadrilaterals" upon which the primary triangulation of the
Pacific Coast states was based. This work overshadowed Davidson's
earlier direction of the observation of the longest geodetic
survey lines and largest triangle ever observed by classical
methods. In 1878 he directed the observations from Roundtop
in the central Sierra Nevada to Mount Shasta at the end of
the Sacramento Valley to Mount Helena which is just north
of Napa Valley, California. The longest line observed of this
great geometric figure was from Mount Shasta to Mount Helena,
a distance of 192 miles, eclipsing the European record. Of
this record, Assistant B. A. Colonna of the Coast and Geodetic
Survey wrote, "And the glory is ours; for America.... can
boast of the largest trigonometrical figures that have ever
been measured upon the globe."

George Davidson led an extraordinarily active professional
life. He was associated with the University of California
from 1870, until his death in 1911. He served as Honorary
Professor of Astronomy and Geodesy, a Regent of the University
from 1877 to 1885, Professor of Geography from 1898 to 1905,
Professor Emeritus until his death, and received an honorary
degree of LLD from the University in 1910. He was elected
President of the California Academy of Sciences in 1871, and
served in that capacity for 16 years. In 1867 he headed the
party making a geographical reconnaissance of Alaska and his
report helped sway the United States Government to purchase
"Russian America." In 1872 he was appointed one of three Commissioners
of Irrigation of California and became recognized as a world
authority on irrigation problems. He was instrumental in helping
establish the Lick Observatory. He survived the San Francisco
Earthquake of 1906, and became the first president of the
Pacific Seismological Society founded in August 1906. In addition
to the above, he was appointed to many national commissions
and organizations. He was honored by foreign governments,
academic institutions, and numerous national and international
professional organizations for his work in the physical sciences.

George Davidson was dismissed from the Survey with no reason
given in 1895, by William Ward Duffield, a political appointee
during the second term of President Cleveland. The uproar
that ensued from the scientific community forced Duffield's
resignation in 1897.

Davidson combined the skills of hydrographer, geodesist, geographer,
astronomer, seismologist, civil engineer, historian, and teacher
for the good of the world scientific and engineering community,
the citizens of the United States, and, in particular, the
development of the west coast states. In 1900 at the age of
75, he commented "... I continue ceaselessly to work because
I love it, because I have the constitution to stand it, and
because I believe that I can add something to human knowledge
and especially to benefit the young. " His services to the
western coast are commemorated by Davidson Seamount; Mount
Davidson in San Francisco; Mount Davidson, Nevada; and Mount
Davidson, Davidson Mountains, Davidson Inlet, Davidson Bank,
and Davidson Glacier, Alaska.